Are we a nation of whiners?

[SamIam]

Phil Gramm, economic advisor to Senator McCain thinks so.

In an interview with the Washington Times, Phil Gramm, a former Texas senator who is now vice chairman of UBS, the giant Swiss bank, said he expects Mr. McCain to inherit a sluggish economy if he wins the presidency, weighed down above all by the conviction of many Americans that economic conditions are the worst in two or three decades and that America is in decline.

"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. "We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet."

So, do you think we're in a recession? Can we make this "imaginary" recession go away if we all think happy thoughts? If I say to myself 1,000 times, "Gas is only $2.00 per gallon," will I be pleasantly surprised upon my next visit to the pumps?

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline" despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.

[BigV]

Gawd!!! Why are you bringing this up again? I've heard it aaaallll day long, please, give me a break. I mean, come on. Seriously. Things are rough out here. I have to make my own blended coffee, and I had GENERIC chocolate puffs for breakfast for pete's sake.

I had to scarf that down to make my carpool on time too!


hehehe...
growth.. unlimited, unidirectional growth. no tolerance for cyclic variations, changes in vector.. Yeah. I do hear a lot of whining.

[Pico and ME]

I love it when people who are rich enough not to feel the pinch yet, complain about the little people who do.

[Sundae]

Which nation, sorry?
The inter in internet stands for international.

[lookout123]

We are a nation of whiners. We always have been. We talk and complain about the things around us that we deem unpleasant or negative in any way. That's cool. What isn't cool is that we have now become a nation of whiners who go that extra step and whine "why hasn't our government fixed this for us yet???" No longer do we exercise our perogative to bitch, moan, and kvetch. We expect the government to jump up and eliminate the source of our displeasure.

You don't like the housing crisis caused in large part by your own greed? Well, Mr voting citizen, let me draft a bill that will allow you to keep your home you couldn't afford in the first place, even if you can't make payments now.

What's that, Mr Citizen? Gas prices are causing you difficulty in filling up your Excursion? And your Neighbor's Yukon? I say, that is a problem, make sure you turn to CSpan tomorrow and I'll discuss it in soundbyte format.

Oh, Mr Citizen, you must be joking! You're saying that the downward slope of the economic cycle is causing you pain and suffering as you watch your 401K balance shrink? Oh Lord, I'll talk to Mr Bernanke about the money supply.

Yes, Mr Citizen? What's this? Coffins you say? Servicemen and women? Oh, I see the sight of flagdraped coffins coming back to the US causes you to lose sleep. I think the only prudent course is to bring all of them home tomorrow without regard to the effect in the region. Certainly, you broke it you buy it doesn't apply here.

Seriously people. Life in these United States looks daunting and troubled at this point in time. There are things about it that are stressful. The future is foggy, but the past is only crystal clear with rose colored glasses because you have forgotten the things that stressed you out at that point in time. Whine and bitch all you want, but quit asking uncle sam to fix everything. The more we allow the government to touch and play with, the more they'll mess up.

[glatt]

Does he understand that the export boom is the result of a weak dollar? And that a weak dollar means we can't afford to buy all the foreign crap? And that we don't make any of our own crap anymore, so we have to buy the foreign crap. But we can't afford it.

It's kind of funny. As I am typing this, a tour of about 30 Japanese people just walked by my office door, looking around. No idea who they are or why they are here. Never saw that before in the 17 years I've worked here. One or two, sure, but not 30. Maybe they are going to buy my company. I smiled and waved.

[BigV]

wrt the weak dollar:

If you're losing a buck a sale, you can't make it up in volume. It's not all about the boom in sales...

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Some people are laying the blame on a generation deliberately encouraged to be narcissistic by inflation of their self-esteem, whether solidly founded or no. Fox News just ran a segment on that today -- featuring a minutes-long cut of an office surveillance cam showing a youthful office guy shoving and punching other cubicle-people, chucking papers around, hurling one computer monitor after another around the place and kicking cubicle partitions over until he falls on his ass on a desk. No one tackles him...

[SamIam]

OK. Can someone explain to me why we are supposed to be having an export boom when the latest figures from Bloomberg show a trade deficit of over 59 billion dollars as of last May? I am seriously confused.

July 11 (Bloomberg) -- Following is a summary of the U.S. trade balance report from the Commerce Department.



=============================================================================
May April March Feb. Jan. Year
2008 2008 2008 2008 2008 Ago
=============================================================================
-----------------Billions of Dollars-----------------
Total trade balance -$59.790 -$60.498 -$56.491 -$60.573 -$57.856 -$59.435
3-mo. average -$58.926 -$59.187 -$58.307 -$58.669 -$58.435 -$57.928
MoM % change -1.2% 7.1% -6.7% 4.7% 0.5% n/a

[lookout123]

The value of the dollar affects a lot of more than you think about.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Some people are laying the blame on a generation deliberately encouraged to be narcissistic by inflation of their self-esteem, whether solidly founded or no. Fox News just ran a segment on that today -- featuring a minutes-long cut of an office surveillance cam showing a youthful office guy shoving and punching other cubicle-people, chucking papers around, hurling one computer monitor after another around the place and kicking cubicle partitions over until he falls on his ass on a desk. No one tackles him...

or shoots him.

[TheMercenary]

Why in fact he is right on target. It must be someone elses fault.

[Cicero]

When I was "let go" right before Christmas because of the sub prime market crash, and I watched other people get fired as well, I don't think I was whining. We all were upset.For good reason. And I was hanging in there....

I might add, that I did not simply imagine the whole event.

I also might add that I am working on a creative project with the city and state to offset the recession locally, and to develop more interest in spending money right here. This is not openly stated because we don't want to look desparate as desperation is not an attractoin, but this exists and they have the numbers to reflect that, on the state and local level. These are things I don't imagine, as you know, I have an active imagination, but this is not something I want to conjure up because it's no fuc**** fun.

[spudcon]

Recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. We haven't had that. Television journalists apparently aren't aware of the definition, hence the term mental recession. Unfortunately, enough people believing these bozos can create recession by generating chain reaction fear about investing. I for one don't want the government to "fix" anything. They are the cause of most of our problems.

[deadbeater]

With the Paris Hilton tax cut, Bush did more than enough already.